From 1893 until her death, she had the distinction of being a Russian grand duchess (by birth), a British princess and royal duchess (by marriage), and the consort (and later widow) of a German sovereign duke.

At the time of her birth, her grandfather, Tsar Nicholas I, was on the throne and her father was Tsarevich. In 1855, Nicholas died and her father became tsar. While devoted to both parents, she was particularly close with her father.[1]

The marriage, however, was not to become a happy one, and the bride was thought haughty by London Society.[3] Furthermore, Tsar Alexander II's insistence that his daughter be styled "Her Imperial Highness" and have precedence over the then Princess of Wales infuriated Queen Victoria. The Queen insisted that the style "Her Royal Highness" Maria Alexandrovna acquired upon marriage should always precede the style "Her Imperial Highness," which was hers by birth. For her part, the new Duchess of Edinburgh apparently resented the fact that the Princess of Wales, who was the daughter of the King of Denmark, took precedence over her, the daughter of the Emperor of Russia. After the marriage, Maria was varyingly referred to as Her Royal Highness, Her Royal & Imperial Highness, and Her Imperial & Royal Highness.

Queen Victoria granted her precedence immediately after the Princess of Wales. Her father gave her the then staggering sum of £100,000 as a dowry, plus an annual allowance of £28,000.[citation needed] From Russia, along with her dowry, Marie also brought trunks full of elaborate rugs, paintings, and icons, along with jewelry, gowns, and her own Russian Orthodox Priest.[4]

Marie had a dislike of life in England. She never got on with Queen Victoria, finding her court dull, in contrast to court of St. Petersburg.[5] In retaliation for the quarrel over precedence, Marie attempted to upstage her mother-in-law by wearing jewels that surpassed those of the queen.[6] She also had a dislike of English weather, and deeply distrusted the British Parliament, convinced that the institution was dangerous and radical.[4]

In June 1880, Marie's mother, Empress Marie Alexandrovna, died. The previous month, Marie had returned home to visit her dying mother, and was horrified to learn that her father had installed his long-time mistress, Catharine Dolgoruky, and their children in apartments directly the dying tsarina at the Winter Palace.[7] While in the past, she had turned a blind eye to her father's affair with Dolgoruky, a quarrel ensued between father and daughter and the tsar, who had alienated the rest of the family due to his conduct, and who was distraught to lose one of his final allies in the family, hurriedly retreated from St. Petersburg to Gatchina Palace for a military review.[8] The confrontation, however, evidently prompted the tsar to return to St. Petersburg each morning to inquire after his wife's health.[7]

Marie was in England when she received the news on March 1st, 1881, that her father had been assassinated by the terrorist group Narodnya Volya on his way home to the Winter Palace, and that consequently her eldest surviving brother had become Tsar Alexander III. Alfred and Marie traveled to St. Petersburg for the funeral, from where they sent word back to England suggesting that the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the brother-in-law and sister of the new tsarina, would be appreciated and the prince and princess came to both represent Great Britain and to supply familial support.[9]

On the death of his uncle, Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on 22 August 1893, the vacant duchy fell to the Duke of Edinburgh, since his elder brother the Prince of Wales had renounced his right to the succession. Upon her husband's ascension to the Ducal throne, the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna became Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in addition to being Duchess of Edinburgh. Unlike her husband, she thoroughly enjoyed being in Coburg, having yearned to leave England.[10] As the consort of a sovereign German duke, she technically outranked her sisters-in-law at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. In 1893, also, her eldest daughter, Marie, married Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Ferdinand and Marie became king and queen of Romania in 1914.

In 1894, Marie's eldest brother, Tsar Alexander III, died of nephritis, aged forty-nine, leaving his twenty-six year-old son as Tsar Nicholas II. Alfred and Marie once again traveled to Russia for an imperial funeral, and were again joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales, who came with their eldest son, George, the Duke of York. They also stayed on in St. Petersburg for the wedding of Nicholas to his fiancee, Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, the youngest surviving daughter of the Prince of Wales' and Alfred's deceased sister, Alice.

Alfred and Marie's only son, also named Alfred, attempted suicide in 1899. Although the attempt failed, he died of complications a couple of weeks later. When the elder Alfred died of cancer in July of 1900, making Marie Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the ducal throne went to Alfred's sixteen year old nephew, Charles Edward.

World War I broke out in August of 1914. In February of 1917, Marie's Romanov relatives in her Russian homeland were overthrown. At the end of the war, Charles Edward was forced into abdication and the twin duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha were abolished.

Marie died in October 1920 in Zürich, Switzerland, to where she had withdrawn to avoid post-war German hostility to Russians. Her demise reportedly occurred after receiving a telegram addressed to her as "Frau Coburg";[11] she was buried in the Ducal Family's cemetery outside Coburg. Of her four daughters, Marie, Queen of Romania was forbidden to travel to Germany to attend her funeral in light of Germany and Romania having fought on opposite sides in the recently concluded war.